Many individuals with hearing loss not seek or get the help they need to function well in everyday life and achieve their quality of life aspirations. Health and social psychology approaches have been effective used in programs for people living with a wide range of other chronic health conditions. Applying these approaches, audiologists may be able to reduce delays in help-seeking, predispose and accelerate readiness for action-taking, support behavior change by the person and communication partners, and design follow up to maintain benefits and prevent relapse. Part 1 of the workshop will familiarize audiologists with health psychology models of behavior change that are inspiring new approaches to audiologic rehabilitation. Pichora-Fuller will introduce the general concepts and Saunders and Laplante-Levesque will examine the application in audiology of the Health Belief Model and the Stages of Change Model. Part 2 will showcase illustrations of what the new AR revolution might look like if the application of a health psychology approach were more widely adopted to address the many unmet needs of people who are hard of hearing. Carson, Singh and Mick will explore re-framing hearing health care with emphasis on social support, community involvement and inter-professional efforts to promote healthy aging.

Learning objectives:

1. Learners will be able to explain the Health Belief Model and the Stages of Change Model with examples from audiologic rehabilitation.
2. Learners will be able to explain how hearing loss may be related to other health issues.
3. Learners will be able to develop plans for bolstering the engagement of family and community members in providing social support for people who are hard of hearing.